Following the Rules  A Dalton Fight Club Fic
by daltonfightclub
Summary: Blaine Anderson didn't fight. He was above that kind of baseless violence. But if he did, he certainly wouldn't talk about it...An AU when Blaine Anderson decided to start the Dalton Fight Club and met Noah Puckerman, long before he knew Kurt. Blangst!
1. Part One

**A/N**: **Well, here it goes! This started out as a little drabble based on this post, and then before I knew I got carried away and BAM. 4,000 unbeta'd words later and we have ourselves a nice little one-shot. Please read, review, share with friends etc.**

**A special thanks to Curt and Dom, our real life Warblers, for spurring the fire that kept me inspired and of course our dear, dear Blaine Anderson. God I love him.**

**I do not own the characters, the show or anything contained herein. I, however, may or may not be in the Fight Club..._Which I obviously can't talk about._**

**Enjoy! xx**

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><p>"Anderson! <em>What<em> are you doing in here?"

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing Puckerman?" Blaine muttered gruffly, grunting through a right jab, left jab, uppercut. Each punch landing with an ignoble 'thud' on the ancient bag, his grunts echoing harshly off the cold ceramic walls.

"It looks like you just almost blew your cool back there..no, it looks like you almost blew your cover," he wrapped his arm around the punching bag, steadying it to catch Blaine's eyes. "And you know what that means.."

Blaine let out a labored breath, suddenly realizing the weight of his body and his actions; unable to support the dead weight, he let his arms fall to his sides. "Yeah..yeah I do." He bowed his head, wiping away the beads of sweat that prickled his untamed hairline. _'__Great,__' _he thought to himself, '_add __that __to __the __list __of __Times__Blaine__Anderson__Royally__Fucked__Up.__'_

"Look man you know I hate that I have to do this," Puck said deliberately, rolling up his sleeves as he widened his stance, bringing his hands up to his chest, stolidly clenching and unclenching his fists. "But I really have no choice. You know the rules."

"Just.." Blaine pleaded through gritted teeth, "can you _not_ aim for my face? It's just, if Kurt saw.." he shook his head at the thought. He hated keeping this from Kurt; it was fine for the first few months, but now that he was at McKinley, things were different. Even though he had his doubts, leaving Dalton had been good for Blaine. Sure he left his friends behind, but he also left his sordid past behind..or so he thought.

Puck looked Blaine up and down; he felt bad, he really did. It's not that he _wanted_ to beat the shit out of a guy half his size - and Noah Puckerman never gave a damn about rules anyway - but this, this was _different_. This was for Blaine's protection, for his own good, really. If anything, he was doing Anderson a favor.

"Yeah, okay. I hate when Hummel gets bitch-" Blaine shot him a contemptuous look. Even if he was about to take one square in the gut, he would still fight for his boyfriend's honor. "Not the face, got it."

Puck wound up his fist as Blaine prepared himself for the inevitable blow. Getting slammed like this wasn't so bad anymore; sure it would burn for awhile, and yes he might have knuckle marks in his chest or abdomen or wherever Puck made his final blow, but Blaine could handle it. He could handle the bruises and the scars, the occasional fib he told Kurt when they would huddle together under the sheets late at night and he'd whisper incredulously: "but how did you get a bruise _there_?" It was worth it. It was worth it because as much as Blaine hated being a slave to icepacks and aspirin, at least he could take it. He could take the kicks and punches with his head up because he knew how to fight back. So maybe a fist could bruise his jaw, but at least it didn't cut him like _those_ words did. _'__Faggot, __fruit, __pussy,__'_ the words began to flood through Blaine's brain, each one painting an ugly memory across his closed eyelids; this happened every time he was about to fight, the words rushing through his veins like venom. '_Pansy, __cocksucker, __disappointment,__' _that last one - from his Father - always hurt the most.

"I'm ready," Blaine resigned, bracing himself for his punishment. Rules were rules.

Puck took one of Blaine's quavering shoulders in his hand as he forcefully jabbed his right fist into the smaller boy's abdomen, throwing his entire body weight into the punch. Blaine let out a stifled choke as Puck wound up for the second blow.

"PUCKERMAN WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

The two boys whipped their heads around to the door of the locker room, startled by the sudden interruption. They looked at each other anxiously, trying to quickly come to a silent agreement with their eyes. Before either could string together words to explain their situation, there were limbs and fists, and _were__those__claws?_ pulling and tugging at Puck's clothes, his hair, nails dragging across his face as the attacker muttered inaudible curses and threats, something like _"__how__dare__you__fuck..what__shit__do__you, __fuck..you__have__no..right, __fuck__you__Noah.__"_

"Dude, GET OFF OF ME," Puck yelled, finally able to leverage his weight against Kurt's tall frame. He grabbed his arms and pushed him carefully against the wall, "calm the fuck down dude."

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? Noah Puckerman, how do you expect me to _calm __down_ when I just walked in on _you_," Kurt tried to worm his way out of Puck's grip, wiggling and thrashing against the wall to no avail, "hitting - no, beating the shit out of my boyfriend? CALM DOWN? Are you serious?"

"Kurt," Blaine took a step towards Kurt with one hand gingerly covering his stomach, "it's not what you think, I swear." His voice was _small_, the rage that previously clouded his vision drained from his body.

"You are _not_ trying to defend this..this, this _bully,_are you Blaine Anderson? I swear if you tell me something as stupid as you _fell_ into his fist...well I don't know what I'll do but it will NOT be pretty." He was still breathing heavily, his eyes darting back and forth between the two, trying to sort out what the hell he just witnessed.

"Puck let him go," Blaine demanded without breaking eye contact with Kurt. Puck gave Kurt a questioning look before letting him down off the wall. "Puck, do you, um, do you think you could give us a minute?" Blaine implored, his legs still frozen by Kurt's icy glare.

"Yeah yeah, I get it. _Boyfriends_," he rolled his eyes as he backed up and headed towards the door. "But remember Anderson, remember what we talked about."

"The rules. Yeah, I got it."

Blaine didn't move until he heard the door of the locker room slam shut. They were enveloped in an unperfect silence, every noise amplified over the tension. The drip of the leaking shower, the steady hum of the ice machine, the occasional creak of a locker swinging open on its own accord. Blaine Anderson had never heard a silence quite this deafening.

"Well?" Kurt crossed his arms over his chest.

"I guess I don't know where to start," Blaine confessed. He took a seat on the wooden bench, burying his head in his ungloved hands. His breath hitched as he inhaled, caught on something halfway between a sob and a choke.

The noise melted Kurt's haughty facade. He plopped down next to Blaine, gingerly placing a hand over the small of his boyfriend's back. "Well," he considered, "why don't you start at the beginning?"

* * *

><p><em>His pulse pounded in his throat, the chilling tickle of blood spilling down his left ear, his heart beating out of his chest. The space was dark and humid, unwelcoming in its stifling heat. He slowly opened his eyes, hoping the darkness would quickly yield to light. He saw bodies, maybe thirty of them, nameless bodies surrounding him, leaning over his limp frame splayed out on the hard concrete floor. They looked worried, terrified maybe. 'Why do they look so freaked out?' Blaine silently questioned. He lifted his right hand up to touch his face, to wipe away the mixture of blood, sweat and tears that coalesced as it ran down his face, streaking his cheekbones with its rosy remnants.<em>

_Except he couldn't move his hand, or his arm, or the entire right side of his body. It just laid there, lifeless and numb._

"_Oh my god. I can't move my arm!" Blaine exclaimed, searching the faces for someone familiar, "SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING, DON'T JUST STAND THEIR DAMNIT!" He knew he was supposed to keep his head level, but holy fuck the numbness started to subside in favor of sharp, shooting pains, jolting his battered body as he writhed in pain._

"_Yo step off guys, I got this," Blaine heard someone grumble through the crowd. He could barely make out his face but the way the dim lights illuminated his silhouette, he could tell the stranger didn't seem to have any hair. Or maybe he was just wearing a hat. Was that a squirrel on his head?_

"_But why do you have a small animal sitting on your head?" Blaine blurted as the boy scooped him up in his arms, carrying him across the warehouse._

"_Is that really what you're asking me right now?" he spatted back. "Dude, you're a fucking mess and you're asking about my mohawk? You must be gayer than I thought."_

_If he had enough energy, Blaine would have fought back. He would have given this kid a lecture about stereotypes and respect and drop overly pretentious lines at him; 'your prejudice is just ignorance' and 'you can chose to be a bully or you can chose to be a better person' and all of those other eloquent one-liners he picked up while in therapy last year. But not now. There was no time for that now. Blaine felt his eyelids get heavy as his head bobbed up and down with each step, he was slipping, tumbling down an endless flight of stairs into a murky abyss. He tried to fight it, tried to hold on to the fleeting lights, gulping in as much of the icy air as possible as he was placed across the backseat of an unrecognizable car. He felt his body sink, sink into the plush seats (or were those clouds?) and he relinquished any control he maintained over his consciousness. Blaine Anderson had been fighting for too long. It was time to throw in the towel._

* * *

><p>"But that doesn't really explain what the hell Noah was doing in here with you today, Blaine." Kurt was fuming, you could practically see the fire emanating from his every pore.<p>

"I know, Kurt," Blaine paced across the length of the room, skimming his fingers over the cool metal of the lockers. "I'm trying to get to that, I promise. It's not.." he paused for a moment to consider his words, Puck's warning still playing in the back of his mind. "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just complicated, okay? I'm trying my best here, just, just trust me okay? Can you trust me?" He tried to bury his uncertainty in his words.

Kurt let out a long and labored sigh, pulling his legs up to his chest and placing his head over his knees. "Of course I can, Blaine. Always."

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><p><em>Somehow the hours turned into days and the days into weeks and before Blaine could even so much as blink he had already spent nearly a month in that same awful hospital bed, begrudgingly sipping juice through straws and begging his mother to sneak him ice cream between meals. He felt lucky, to some degree, that he hadn't slipped into a deep coma like the doctors thought he would. He was only knocked out for a few days, long enough for them to screw a metal plate into his shoulder blade and patch up his ribs before sewing him up and pumping a dangerously intoxicating medication cocktail through his veins. He was lucky, sure, but he still felt like an asshole. He did this. He put himself here. There was nothing anyone could say to convince him otherwise...until the day the kid with the funny haircut knocked on his door.<em>

"_Come in," Blaine replied apathetically, not bothering to look up from his copy of 'Show Biz Weekly.'_

_The other boy hesitantly approached the bed, setting down a small bouquet of daisies on the bedside table, some of which were still attached to their roots, leaving a little trail of dirt across the sterile hospital floor. "I, um, I got these for you.." he mumbled as he tried to collect some of the scattered dirt in his hands. "I know they're not much, but my friend Kurt, he told me that you're supposed to bring shit when you visit ga-people, when you visit people in hospitals, so.."_

"_No they're great," Blaine put down his magazine, letting a smile pull at the corner of his lips for the first time in weeks, "thank you. I appreciate the gesture."_

_They stayed like that for an uncomfortable amount of time, waiting for the other to break the ice, to volunteer the inevitable information and squelch the enormous elephant in the corner of the room. Neither wanted to budge._

"_So, I don't know you're name," Blaine recoiled at the uncouthness of his own question._

"_Puck. Noah Puckerman, but those douches over at McKinley took to calling me Puck years ago, so that's pretty much what I answer to."_

"_Puck, it's nice to meet you, I'm Blai-"_

"_I know who you are, Anderson," he pulled a chair up to the bedside, kicking his boots up over the side table as he leaned back into his hands. "Why would I be here if I didn't know you?"_

"_Well, I..uh, I guess I don't know." Blaine **always** knew._

"_I guess you're in for a little pillow talk, must be your lucky day. I mean just look at me," Puck waved his hands downwards, as if to prompt Blaine to drink in the image before him, "I'm sure you've been waiting for a man like me your whole life," he said smoothly, adding a wink for good measure. Blaine felt the blush spread up from his collar as he shifted in his bed uncomfortably._

"_I really have no idea what you're talking about, Puckerman," he responded indignantly. Blaine didn't exactly know why, but this boy had a way of getting under his skin, creeping in and making it crawl with uncertainty._

"_I told you, that's what I'm here for. If you could just keep those pearly whites shut for five minutes, then maybe I could tell you a little story about how Blaine Anderson took down a fucking starting linebacker nearly twice his size and lived to see the day."_

"_I WHAT?"_


	2. Part Two

"A FIGHT CLUB? Blaine Anderson, you CAN NOT be serious right now!" Kurt sprung up from his seat, wringing his hands with anxiety. "I can not believe we are having this conversation. You're telling me that after you got beaten up at a _school d__ance_, after you were chased out of your own school, you decided it would be a good idea to throw yourself in front of McKinley's front line? In front of the same ignorant neanderthals who shoved me into lockers? In what convoluted world does that make any bit of sense, Blaine?"

Blaine just wished he wouldn't shout so loud. He'd heard Kurt take this tone before, but never with him, not _because_ of him. He was already afraid of losing his nerve before finishing the story; he couldn't afford to be afraid of losing Kurt on top of it all.

"Just hear me out Kurt," for the first time all afternoon Blaine moved to close the distance between them. He took Kurt's hands and led them back to the bench, motioning Kurt to sit down so they could face each other. They both crossed their legs, Blaine bringing Kurt's hands into his lap as he took a deep breath. "Remember that conversation we had, Kurt? That day you came to spy on us and we had coffee with Wes and David?"

"That was the day we met, Blaine," his face softening at the thought. "Of course I remember."

"And you remember what I told you? How I regretted running from those bullies?"

Kurt nodded hesitantly, reflexively squeezing Blaine's hands in reassurance.

"Well, that wasn't the entire truth," Blaine paused to gauge Kurt's reaction, his silence cueing Blaine to continue. "Not exactly, anyway. I did run, Kurt. I transferred to Dalton to get away from them, but the thing is, the memories didn't go away, the hurt didn't stop..I still felt it, you know? Whenever I closed my eyes, they were there. The memories of lying on the ground that night..or the words, I would see those horrible, horrible words etched across my eyes, like someone fucking _tattooed_ them onto my brain. I got away from it, Kurt, but no matter what I did I couldn't shake the God damn memories."

Blaine couldn't afford to look at Kurt; he knew Kurt was tearing up, he could tell by the way his thumb slowly rubbed circles into Blaine's hand, the way he tried to repress a sniffle every thirty seconds, the way he scooted ever-so-slightly closer until their knees butted up against each other. He just needed to get through this.

"And there were the nightmares, of course. And the therapist my mother made me see. Well he suggested that maybe I find an _outlet_ for my anger. I didn't even think I was angry, Kurt. I was just sad, you know? I was sad _all __the __fucking __time_ and I couldn't do a damn thing about it," he chuckled nervously. Blaine hated how lame he sounded, vulnerable and oafish, not the way he preferred Kurt to think of him. "But I did what he said. I started singing - with the Warblers - which helped a lot, but it wasn't_enough_. It helped pass the time and I was finally making friends and all that, but the nightmares didn't stop and I still felt that _stirring_ - every time my father would make an off-handed comment, or when one of the boys would slip and forget that I was in the room, that maybe I would be _offended _by those things they never knew weren't okay to say. It took me awhile, but at some point I finally realized that it was rage I was feeling. Pure, unadulterated rage."

The words started to flow from Blaine's mouth, unbridled and uncensored. Pouring out of him after being pent up for so long. Fast. They couldn't come fast enough.

"So that's when I took up boxing. I wasn't very good at first but it still felt _good_ you know. It felt fucking awesome to channel all of those words and hurt into something productive. It was like each punch pulled up a nightmare and every time my fist made contact with the bag - or a person - I was expelling that memory _forever._ God, Kurt, it felt so fucking _good_." He closed his eye and threw his head back, trying to remember how the release felt that first time.

"I guess at some point I decided I wanted _more_, like I was a monster or something. I can't really tell you what it was, other than maybe I needed to prove to myself that I could do it, I could beat those kids up if I ever saw them again..and as good as it felt to punch a big sack of sand, I knew it'd be nothing compared to a face, or a stomach, or a shoulder.." Kurt suddenly recoiled, unsure if those words were really coming out of his boyfriend's mouth.

"It sounds worse than it was, Kurt. But I wasn't the only one with those thoughts...pretty soon we had maybe 20 kids at Dalton in the Club. We'd meet up every Friday in that old warehouse down the road from the girl's school, I think someone's dad owned it. We set up rules and guidelines and always did it safely." Kurt scoffed. "Safe as we could, anyway. No one ever got hurt, not once. Not until that night.."

"When you invited McKinley's gang of inmates over for a play date?"

"Right. The knight I knocked Karofsky out cold and woke up in a hospital bed."

That's when Blaine heard it. He wasn't sure if it was a gasp or a yelp or maybe even a sob, but that inaudible noise escaping Kurt's beautiful mouth made Blaine acutely aware that the pieces were starting to fall into place. Kurt's eyes were searching Blaine's face and he could see the dots being connected, as if the freckles across his cheeks were the missing pieces of information for which he was searching.

"You knew Karofksy." Blaine nodded.

"And Karofsky knew you." Blaine nodded again.

"And Puck visited you in the hospital." Another nod.

"So that means when he told me to go spy on the Warbl-"

"Garglers," Blaine corrected him instinctively.

"Oh. My. God." Kurt's hands dropped as his body recoiled. The information washing over him like the frigid waves in the Atlantic. He was shaking. The tears he had bottled up for the past hour started spilling down his cheeks.

"Kurt, it's not like _that_, I promise. I _promise_." Blaine was chasing him around the room, every attempt to snag Kurt's hand was swatted away with indignation. "It's not like we planned _this,_" Blaine was about to get on his knees, to beg, literally beg to help Kurt understand, "it's just that Puck thought it would be good for you, and for me. For us. To have each other."

"You expect me to believe that Noah Puckerman, the boy who tried to steal an ATM - an ATM BLAINE - had the knowledge, the insight, the _forethought_, to know that we would be good friends? That we _needed_ to be friends? Is that what you're saying Blaine Anderson?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Kurt grunted out an inaudible response, throwing his hands up in resignation. "I don't know what to think about this, I just don't know."

"Kurt," Blaine trapped him against a wall, cupping his face with his hands. "Kurt, look at me. _Please_," and then there were tears, hot, burning tears streaming down Blaine's cheeks as he prayed that Kurt wouldn't give up now. They'd come too far, they'd been through too much to just have this crumble to pieces because of a stupid fucking Fight Club. "It's still me, Kurt. I am still me._Please_." He couldn't stifle the sobs any longer; they rolled from his chest, shaking his body as he clutched his arms around his stomach, each heave of his chest sending pangs of guilt through his abdomen, reminding him of the the blows Puck dealt him earlier.

"I just need time to think about this Blaine," Kurt peeled himself off the wall, backing slowly towards the door.

"Kurt, please, don't. It's just a stupid Club with stupid rules. I was an idiot..I should have told you. Kurt, _I__'__m __sorry_."

The words blanketed the room with that familiar deafening silence, barely having time to breathe before Kurt was out the door, running down the hallway. Blaine collapsed on the floor, stunned.

"Didn't your daddy ever teach you to follow the rules, little boy?" The words travelled over a row of lockers, the tone so familiar it sent chills down Blaine's spine. If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn his blood curdled at the sound.

"_Karofksy,_" Blaine whispered, scrambling to his feet as the footsteps drew closer and closer. Before he could even blink he was slammed against a locker, his throat straining an impulsive retch, his feet dangling inches above the ground.

"What's the first rule, Anderson?" Karofsky's voice was low and dangerous,his breath hot and seething as it ghosted across Blaine's damp face.

"Do not talk about Fight Club," he mumbled back.

"What was that? I don't think I heard you over all the _gay_ in the air."

"I said," Blaine huffed through his gritted teeth, "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club."


End file.
